The Truth Hurts Worse
by k13aquamarine
Summary: Ten short fics inspired by songs about the various characters in the novel.


I got this idea from reading a fic with this type of format, where you put your mp3 on shuffle and write a short fic for the first 10 songs that you hear. I'm writing for the novel Unwind by Neal Shusterman, which I don't own (the story or the author....) and I'm not making a profit on, so no lawsuits please. The overall theme was just the novel in general, so I didn't focus on just a certain character or whatever. I don't think many people have read this book, but it's really amazing, so you should go read it! Now! And let me know what you think of this.

Called The Truth Hurts Worse because the ninth fic down is my favorite one, I doubt anyone would consider Ariana as a deep, smart and emotional human being. yep, I have talent for finding that in shallow static characters..

and I found that I have an insufficient variety of music on my mp3...I should get some more. too many FOB and Evanescence.

**The Truth Hurts Worse**

**Heaven Knows--The Corrs**

Sometimes, when they were together, Risa noticed Connor staring blankly, consumed in his troubled thoughts. He finally told her one day that he was thinking about his girl from back home. She was the only girl he had ever had feelings for, except Risa of course, but that relationship was held together by desperation and a need for survival. Twinging with jealousy, Risa grabbed Connor's face in her hands and forced him to look at her. She stared at him with eyes glowing like embers and told him that this was the life he had now. It was filled with sorrow and trouble, but it was the life they were living, and he should forget all about that What's-Her-Face back at the place he left (how could he call it home??). Then he would smile, mumble a quick "I know" and a snide "Jealous much?" and wrap his arms around her before she could protest, letting her know that he regretted nothing.

**All That I'm Living For-Evanescence**

Lev was on the streets alone for four weeks after leaving CyFi. Stumbling through dark alleys and in wet gutters at night was where he would find himself teetering dangerously on the brink of insantiy, the experiences of the past couple months blending a conflict of separate thoughts in his head. He was a different person now than he was just eight weeks ago. During the day, he knew his goal. It was sure in his mind that he wanted to survive, to keep running and escape unwinding. But at night, when he was starving and exhausted and delirious, he wanted nothing more than to die. Sometimes he even considered turning himself in and going to his tithing or even going as an ordinary Unwind, seeing as he had disposed of his faith long ago. Then, he would snap out of it, horrified at just how easily he had given up in his mind. He would have to keep running, running from the law and his fate and his own terrible thoughts.

Of course, this was an easy motive during the day. But he still encountered those dangerous thoughts at night...

**Cloud Nine-Evanescence**

Every Unwind has a story. And every Unwind holds a grudge. A grudge against someone, someone who oppressed them, someone who ignored them, someone who signed the order for their Unwinding. Unwinds are unwanted by the people who were supposed to love them, but the love was fake or revoked. Of course an Unwind does all they can to escape this fate, but when nobody loves them, they feel that maybe they don't deserve to live. Maybe they should just be taken apart. Maybe part of them can go to someone who is loved, someone who does deserve to live. And then they can share some of that love, if even just a small fraction.

**Gone Going-Black Eyed Peas**

Sometimes Connor wonders if he wasn't going to be unwound, if he'd had a chance to live his life without it being threatened, if he would be the same person he is now, the person who values friendship, honesty and integrity over the kinds of material things everyone else cares about nowadays.

**Schrie!-Tokio Hotel**

All his life, Connor was a rebel to authority. He hated being pushed around and told what to do. Fighting, the mix of fists and spitting blood and blind fury, that was his outlet. When he was alone on a chilly summer night, he would stand on his ledge on the freeway and just scream, the echoe of it piercing the silence of the crisp and still air.

**Ready, Set, Go!-Tokio Hotel**

There was an adventure in it. Just the two of them, Connor and Risa together, running from the rest of the world. There were others, of course, but they didn't matter. It was just them, racing through the night, their breath catching in their chests, laughing and gasping and collapsing on the ground in a giggling heap. This was a figurative image, of course. If only it were that light-hearted. But that was essentially what they were doing. They were opposing all of society, they were going to survive, and once they did that, they were going to change the world forever.

**The Carpal Tunnel of Love-Fall Out Boy**

Hayden always saw the glamour--or humour or romance, whatever went on in that strange, mysterious mind of his--in being a runaway in a group of runaways. He went on his odd musings that only he fully understood (and Connor wasn't sure that he even did), talking about the irony or hypocrisy of their "predicament" (as he called it). Sometimes he even went as far to say that they were luckier than ordinary people, pitying them and their shallow, dull lives.

Only Hayden could make dark seem light, and in such a sickening way. That kid always had an angle different from any other imaginable.

**Atrophy-Red Jumpsuit Apparatus**

CyFi was always able to give Lev a good pep-talk when he was really doubting himself. He preached about the truth. And CyFi knew the truth. He saw things as they were.

But when CyFi's mind faltered, when he was doubting his own control and sanity, Lev had to take on the duty of keeping him tethered to himself, to Cyrus Finch and to Lev, because Lev needed to have CyFi by his side. Whenever CyFi showed a flicker of weakness, Lev would jump to his side and tell him to remember, to remember the strong person he was when Lev had first met him, because Lev needed that strong person to come back soon.

**I've Got All This Ringing in my Ears and None on my Fingers-Fall Out Boy**

Ariana had promised him she would go with him, promised to run away and leave everything behind, just for him. She told him this with an empty conscience, knowing full well that she could never bring herself to do it. She could never just walk away from her life. But nonetheless, she told Connor she would. She knew he would hate her for backing out last minute, but she also knew he would have a better chance of surviving if he ran and he wouldn't try that unless she assured her presence by his side. But she knew that wasn't the truth, and still, even with the thought of his safety in mind, she could see his heart break when she told him she wouldn't be going with him. She would most likely never see him again, and that was the truth. And the truth hurt worse than seeing him off to be unwound.

**Lose Control-Evanescence**

Risa was bitter at the way the triplicate just looked down upon her, at the way they just thought of her as another ward and not a human life. They looked at her and saw wasted space and expenses. They knew nothing about her, and they would not remember her once they sent her off to her unwinding and she was gone. She wanted to strangle them all, murder them brutally in this office and walk out coolly like they meant nothing to her, just like she meant nothing to them right now. She entertained these thoughts as she sat across from them all, grimacing and giving short, facetious responses to their unneccessary questions and remarks. She just stared and played their little game, knowing that there's nothing she can do now.

* * *


End file.
